


More Than This

by itsaquinnquinnsituation



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 22:23:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1874622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsaquinnquinnsituation/pseuds/itsaquinnquinnsituation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry, Louis, love, angst, alternate universe.... what else is new? Enter a latino cop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than This

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction, intended for entertainment purposes only. I do not mean to offend or insult anyone. No characters, real or based off real people, belong to me. I am not making money off my work.
> 
> This is my universe and exactly how I see it. Writing should be enjoyed, not judged.
> 
> Uh... what can I say? Just another one of my sugary love stories. Sometimes I feel like what I write is like an equivalent of a spoof off a Justin Bieber perfume, you know, that cheap stuff you can get when you can't afford the original? Makes me sick. But what can I say, I enjoyed writing it. Especially the cop. I think I will do a cop spin-off substory. Yes... Sounds good. Quinn is in a cop mood. Yes. Ah, and thank you to the lovely Shane Mack for his song of the same name. 
> 
> Ok, enough of my blather... on with the story. Don't forget to take you diabetes meds at the end, folks.

“Well what?”

"Well, I can’t get it done this week, Louis, there are far too many factors at play!”

“I don’t care! Harry, do you realize that *this* is by no means my problem? Somehow, you seem to think that you have the right to place this burden on me!”

“I’m not trying to…”

“I wouldn’t even have to call you anymore if not for this thing! You’ve been telling me for weeks that you’ll take care of it and? Get it done and get it over with, basta!”

“Louis! Nick’s place is not big enough to accommodate the furniture, I’ve already told you!”

“So sell it!”

“I could! But it still won’t be done as fast as you’d like it! This stuff is really expensive and if – *if* I had to sell it, which I’d rather not – I’d want to get something close to what I paid for it.” 

“I don’t care. Harry! You. Need. To. Get. Your. Furniture. Out – do you hear me – Out of my apartment! I don’t want to continue living here because I can barely afford the rent on my own, but I can’t move until I get rid of this stuff! Seriously now! It’s been almost six months since you moved!”

“I know! But you didn’t seem to have a problem having it…”

“I didn’t! You’re right! But now I want to move – and I can’t!”

“Can't you take it with you to your new place?”

“What? No! No! Seriously now?” – Louis switched the mobile to the other hand, blinking furiously, - “You gotta be kidding me! I am not going to deal with your shit, this is not my problem! You get it out this week or I’m putting it on the curb with a “Free” sign! Give me a call when you’re ready to pick it up, I am not wasting any more time talking about it!”

He clicked the button to hang up, threw the phone on the armchair and collapsed on the couch – Harry’s couch, which, though it was leather, still gave off faint smell of Harry’s cologne… well, if one pressed his nose right into the leather. Which Louis did, burying his face in the couch arm with a tinny, almost inaudible whine. 

 

 

Packing up is hard to do. There’s all that opening, smelling, trying on, re-reading, examining, touching, feeling, reminiscing, longing, wanting, wishing, hoping… crying. Crying makes no sense and is not worth it. Packing is the time to move on. 

 

 

“Hello?”

“Luis?”

“Who is this?”

“I calling for… uh… about Harry. Harry Styles.”

“Doesn’t live here any lon… wait, why are you calling my cell? This is not his number and if you try to call his home number, I will tell you that he does not live here as of six months ago!”

“Wait… wait a moment, please. I not trying to call him. I … I trying to… speak to you… I guess.”

“You guess? What the hell is this about?” 

“Let… let me explain, p-please” – the voice on the other end momentarily trembled, - “My name is Alfonso Guevara. I am Warrenton County police officer.”

“And? Is he accused of something? Why are you calling me?”

“No… the… your friend Harry Styles…”

“Okay, he is not my friend. Let me get this straight. We used to date, yeah, lived together – huh, probably way longer than we should have, but right now…”

“… was in car accident and…”

Louis choked on air:

“What? Uh… D… does his mother know? She lives out of state but d… wait, did you call his boyfriend? Nick? Why are you calling me? Where is he?”

“It’s… They took him to St. Luke’s.. I… I, actually… t… the thing is, it’s pretty bad… do you think you can… will you… can you.… go there?”

“Fuck!” – Louis grabbed for the keys on the side table and ran out of the door in his house shoes.

 

 

He stood before the doors of St. Luke’s Memorial Hospital and he couldn’t remember how he got there. Honking, changing lanes, muttering under his breath, fumbling with the turn signal until he nearly broke off the handle, slamming on the breaks and the gas pedal, in turns….

 

“W… Hello, yeah I need to…”

“Sir, to the window… to the information window, please! Wait your turn.”

“No, I just need to ask about…”

“At the information window.”

“Goddamnit! I don’t need information! I need to ask about a person who was just brought here! His name is Harry Styles and…. Why can’t you…” – He made his hands into fists.

“Luis!”

That peculiar way the voice pronounced his name made him turn around in an instant. An athletic Hispanic male wearing police officer uniform was standing up from a simple white plastic chair, empty paper cup in hand, looking at him with a muted apprehension. 

“Y-yeah?” – Louis looked at him cautiously. 

“I’m Alfonso Guevara. Police Officer. You can see.”

A beat passed, both young men locked in an awkward staring game.

“I.. I need to find out…” - Louis started but was immediately interrupted.

“He is… they took him up... upstairs… up the stai… where the intensive unit…”

“What’s… how do you…” – He tried frantically to read the officer’s brown eyes, but it proved hard with the world spinning around him.

“Because I was… at the scene. But I off now. I came here because… I want to tell you… Because was big accident. He was in the car. Harry. In the car… like that… hit from behind… then his car hit in the front… but… air bag did not go off… did not explode… and the wheel like… like went through like that… and we were…. When I got there… I…”

“I” – Louis pressed his hand to his forehead, - “Sorry, I think I need to sit down for a second.”

“Sure, sure” – the cop just sat right back onto the plastic chair and waited until Louis lowered himself next to him.

“How is he?”

“Looks very bad. But you can’t go up. Up… stairs. Because they…they uh… doing operation now… or some... things… something.”

Louis stared at him. The officer blinked a couple times and continued:

“And… but we were there before the ambulance. And I was… I look in… into the car… and they say don’t touch, but he was like… squished and I pulled him and he… like… woke up… and spit blood everywhere because saying something… but I didn’t know what was saying… I thought he saying “Who…” like who is it… and I saying like “It’s police… calm down, man, relax, doctor almost here” and he like… reaching… reaching and reaching… and like pointing… and I see a jacket… there, I found phone and wallet… then the ambulance was here and he was still awake… and he like… screams almost… but he was… like… how they say… losing it… eyes this big, just looking at me… and just screaming and screaming… then I realize he saying ‘Luis’… you know? Not ‘who is.’ ‘Luis.’”

“No, Louie… Louie… is my name… anyway. And?”

“And I say to him – Okay, okay, man, Luis, I got it… then I show him the phone like I will call… and he stopped. Stopped yelling. Then they took him.”

“And?”

“I stayed. Need to ask questions, who saw… that kind of thing. But then other police came because I off my shift. But I wrote your number. From his phone. Because… how he screaming and begging… I never seen something like that… just “Luis” and “Luis” over and over and over. So much pain. And I can feel. Me duele aca, entiendes?” – He put his hand over his left chest.

“I don’t speak Spanish” – Louis blurted. 

“He wanted to see you. Because he afraid is dying.”

“I’m… I’m gonna…” – Louis jumped off the chair but the officer reached up with his hand and pulled him down:

“No, you can’t do nothing now. Now, you can only pray.”

Louis closed his eyes. You can’t do nothing now. You could have done something when you were nagging Harry about his job - but Louis, being a cameraman requires long hours and wild cast and crew parties...... Or when you were telling him off for being late again - Louis, this is for my job!…. Or when you turned away from him in bed because he smelled of foreign cologne – Louis, I’m only hugging them, you really should know better…. Or - Harry, why can’t you get the simplest things done, for God’s sake? And on time, please? – Louis, I didn’t have time, - or, Louis, I just forgot… And it just went on and on to the point where words that should not be in print permanently replaced the cute nicknames they’d once given each other….until one day he was gone… and Louis came home to a half-empty closet. Then he really wanted him gone, gone out of social bubble and out of his life, because his eyes stung and hurt, and it hurt like something was torn away… and maybe something was torn away… Something that could have been stitched together before that lizard Nick made his move…. But no, no….. and now is not the time anymore. Now, you can only pray. 

“I have to go home” – Officer Guevara said and slowly got up, - “But you can wait here. The doctor will come and tell you what happen.”

“Wait” – Louis jerked, turning to him but not getting up, - “Why… why did you call me? And come here? There’s no way this kind of a thing is a standard police protocol.”

“Not police” – Officer Guevara lowered his voice, leaning closer to him, - “But I understand. He loves you. Because he call your name before he dying, so he want to see you. Only you. If I didn’t tell you this…and he….if he…d… maybe you never know.”

“No. He is with someone else now”- Louis leaned back in his chair, - “This is none of your business, of course, but we broke up a long time ago.”

“Why?”

And if not for the officer’s eyes being so wide-open innocent, Louis really would have told him off for lack of tact, but as is, he sighed and cautiously explained:

“Many things. He’s childish. Immature. Irresponsible. Unreliable. Unrealistic. Zany. Scatter-brained. Type B to the extreme. I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with all this much longer – I mean…”- He shook his head looking up at the cop again, - “Wait” – He narrowed his eyes, - “You didn’t understand a word of what I just said, did you?”

“Sorry” – his conversation partner gave him a faint smile, - “My English is not very good. Some words I don’t know. But I’m married, you know… and… my husband he… he is police officer too… yeah… and… but one time he was away… he was on project in Tennessee something… two weeks… I went to this club one night because… we fight… fought on the phone and I… feeling so sad and… I drink a lot… tequila and other… and… then this one guy… it just happened, you know…I don’t know how… I didn’t… I was so drunk… and… then…then Ricardo come home… and I tell him… because I felt so bad… but… and… he crying… I crying… even we are police officers, we should never cry… I never cry in my life even as a little baby…. but we crying this time… a lot… yeah… and I tell him I love him… and… I just so sorry… because I love him more than this… mistake… but he forgive me. You know? He forgive me. And I say, I got a second chance on life. That was five years ago. I never again… done something like that.”

“Oh-kay” – Louis raised his eyebrows, - “I am… sorry this happened, but how is that even… why are you telling me this?”

“Because that this Harry loves you so much, I now ask myself what he done that you cannot forgive.”

And Louis just stared, silent.

“I have to go” – Officer Guevara repeated, - “Ricardo waiting. He off tonight. You can stay here. The doctor will tell you.”

“Wait! How do I… How…”

“You call me when you know. Because you have my number when I call you. I want to know if Harry is okay.”

Louis watched him give the waiting room guard a nod, throw out his paper cup and proceed out into the hall. 

 

 

Faces, faces, screaming, cursing, shuffling, ruffling of paper, clinking, beeping, screeching, squeaking, buzzing, blinking, and all he wanted was to go back in time about a year and make it all never come to this.

 

 

When he was finally allowed to enter, he could barely recognize Harry. His whole head was covered in bandages with some kind of metal things attached to his nose, and it appeared, if one took away all these medical devices, it would just fall apart. Louis sat by his bed for an additional eternity, fearing to blink lest he missed a move, a flutter, a twitch, but no, Harry slept with all these tubes and drips making him look like an alien creature. 

Finally, Louis fell asleep, and dreamt that he was married to Harry, and Harry worked as a police officer in Warrenton County. He dreamt of another officer - probably Officer Guevara, giving him a call – Harry had been shot and would never walk again, and for that reason, he, the officer, was taking him away to take care of him. And Louis just begged and begged to see Harry, called his name over and over again, to no avail. He tried to tell the officer that he didn’t care if Harry would never walk – but the cop only talked about leather couches. Then, the dream changed and now it was he, Louis, who found himself drunk in a club and kissing a stranger, only to notice Harry staring at them. And as he tried to pull away and say something, anything, Harry just smiled that kind of a tired smile that he’d used to respond with to Louis’ tirades just before things really went South, and whispered: “I love you more than this” but then just dissolved into thin air.

 

Louis woke up whimpering, noticing that his tears had thoroughly wetted the bedding by Harry’s hand, where, apparently, his head landed as he fell asleep. He watched Harry’s hand, cut up and severely bruised and thought of how it felt on his shoulder when Harry came home late, slipped out of his clothing and climbed into bed, invariably spooning Louis from behind. He thought of the way this hand felt on his own as Harry taught him to make roses using a bag of whipped cream – “We’ll do this on the cake for our wedding” – he teased. But mostly, he tried to remember the way this hand felt when it reached to console him after an argument and he slapped it angrily away.

“Fuck you” – Louis wiped his face on his sweater sleeve, - “Why do you have to do this to me, you bastard?”

The hand moved. 

Just barely, the bruised, bandaged hand with a line clipped to its finger, moved half-an-inch closer to the edge of the bed. In disbelief, Louis cautiously rested his own within a millimeter of the hand. The hand moved again and two cut up fingers slowly climbed on top of Louis’ and stayed there.

Shaking, Louis stood up as if in slow motion and leaned over Harry’s face. His lashes were fluttering desperately, lids trying to rise like a theater curtain, but the eyes behind them were so obviously rolled back in their sockets, that Louis burst out in a loud sob. As if on cue, green irises flickered behind the half-closed eyes. Harry was trying to look at him. And Louis exploded:

“I hate you, you dickweed, do you know that?? Do you realize, how much I hate you? I hate you because you make me cry. Nobody makes me cry. Not one single person. But you do. And I hate you for it.”

He covered his face with his hand and sobbed for several seconds over Harry’s motionless body. When he finally looked at him again through the blur and grit, he noticed that Harry had given up on trying to open his eyes, and instead, a single tear had escaped and made its way down his discolored cheek. 

 

 

 

By ten o’clock in the morning, Louis, having to hold onto the wall for support, had made his way back into the hospital waiting room. With shaking fingers, he fished his cell-phone out of his jeans’ back pocket. Having pressed the wrong button four times, he finally heard a now-familiar voice:

“Digame.”

“Th-this is… Luis.”

“Oh. Okay. Hi. How is it going… Luis?”

“Harry lived. The doctors say, he broke almost every bone in his body. But he’ll live. Looks pretty bad, though.”

“Oh. I am happy about that… Oh no…. osea… I am happy that he lives… not that he broke… I mean…”

Louis inhaled, feeling the darkness attempt to close in on him.

“I have to say something to you, Officer Guevara. I have to thank you. You… you saved a life last night.”

“No, I… I didn’t. I didn’t do anything… maybe the doctor who operated him… maybe you should…”

“I didn’t say you saved Harry’s life, Officer” – Louis smiled bitterly to himself, - “I think you saved mine.”

 

 

“Well, I can’t move like that!”

“I told you, you should have really given more thought to the crutches!”

“I did! Before… but I can’t put that much weight on my right arm!”

“Then use a wheelchair!”

“I can’t sit up straight like that yet. I have to be reclining and you can’t very well adjust the back!”

“Well, I can’t haul you out on a stretcher!”

“I’m not asking you to! I can walk. I just need you to… to sort of…”

“Ouch! Harry! That hurts if you squeeze my shoulder like that!” 

“This is really not working out, is it, Louis?”

Louis turned to him in a snap and found him leaning onto the door frame again, face downcast, eyes almost closed. It was only a question, of course, but he meant it. 

“No. No, it isn’t” – Louis agreed, watching him nod slightly, biting his lip, - “But maybe if I just did this…” – with a familiar motion, he snaked his arm gently around Harry’s waist, sliding his shoulder under Harry’s armpit and pressing his body securely against his own. He felt him momentarily stiffen – the way the torn muscles momentarily contracted, pulling on the shattered bones, - and then relax, moulding into Louis’ side. Yeah, there would have to be a lot of rebuilding to do, Louis thought, a lot of restructuring and a lot of refitting. Aloud, he said:

“Hold the cane. We’re parked about thirty-five feet away. It’s a long road… but we’ll make it.”


End file.
